The liquidity crisis has affected both the trade in food and the planting of the winter crop.

As demonetisation enters its second week, traders in Patna’s Maroofganj mandi are seeing something unprecedented.

In the last seven days, the supply of new stocks in this wholesale market, which supplies cooking oil, spices, rice, wheat and pulses to shopkeepers across Patna, has plummeted. The supply of cooking oil, for instance, is down by 80%.

Talk to traders selling spices, grains or pulses and you hear similar numbers. “Do you see how quiet this market is?” said an accountant at a rice shop. “Till 10 days ago, you would not have been able to walk down this street.”

In the same period, orders from shopkeepers have fallen steeply as well. Most of them cannot buy as much stock as before, said Abhijit Kumar, who runs a wholesale shop for spices, because they have only Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes – both derecognised as legal tender by the government.

The strange thing is: despite the contraction in both supply and demand, commodity prices are stable.

Himanshu Kumar, a wholesale trader in cooking oil, said prices have not changed in the last one week. In rice and dal, said Vikas Kumar, a rice merchant who was overseeing the loading of sacks onto cycle rickshaws when this reporter met him, “demand is 80% down”. But prices, he said, have not changed.

The empty streets in Patna's Maroofganj mandi. Photo: M Rajshekhar

Travel down to the fruit and vegetable market near Gandhi Maidan in Patna, and you will see something similar.

One of the biggest fruit and vegetable markets in Bihar’s capital, it occupies a handful of streets between the south bank of the river Ganga and a busy thoroughfare which runs east, heading out of Patna. This mandi gets its fruits and vegetables in multiple ways – traders travel to nearby villages early in the morning to buy vegetables which they later sell at the mandi, others go to a nearby wholesale market locally known as the Bazaar Samiti, and yet others get their vegetables from the wholesale market at Mithapur, near the train station.

Here too, volumes are down. Arrivals have fallen by half, said Sachidanand Singh, a wholesaler who supplies to vegetable sellers in this mandi.

On Wednesday morning, Sohan Kumar, a fruit seller, sat cross-legged on his cart at one end of the mandi with a heap of no more than 30 papayas in front of him. Usually, eight trucks arrive at the wholesale market every day, he said. “Right now, only two are coming.”

A liquidity crisis

Going by newspaper reports, Patna is not the only place in India seeing such changes. The vegetable market in Sonepat, Haryana, is seeing a lull, as is the grain mandi in Ghaziabad.

At Delhi’s largest agricultural market, Azadpur mandi, there were hardly any farmers on Tuesday morning. People at the mandi said farmers who bring produce to sell from the neighbouring districts of Panipat and Sonepat in Haryana, and from parts of Uttar Pradesh, have stopped their trips since November 13.

Prices, as this news report from Hyderabad says, are stable in some other parts of the country as well.

The reasons are simple, but the result is disturbing.

Take the mandi at Gandhi Maidan. According to Shiela Devi, a vegetable seller in her mid-30s who had arranged her baskets of brinjals, ladies’ finger and other vegetables near Sohan Kumar’s push-cart, farmers are not accepting Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.

A similar payment crisis is playing out at Maroofganj. At Abhijit Kumar’s store, the wholesaler was talking to Jallandhar Kumar, a shopkeeper who buys from him. The latter only had Rs 1,000 notes and wanted to buy provisions for his shop, but the wholesaler was loath to take the notes. His suppliers do not accept those notes, he said.

Internet banking does not work here. Partly because, as a wholesaler in the grain business said, most businessmen do not know how to do internet banking. Many do not even have current accounts. “They did not want to show their transactions,” he said.

Instead, most participants in this chain operate largely in cash. But, with demonetisation, they cannot use a large part of the currency they own. Getting the same amounts in new denominations from banks is impossible, given the caps on withdrawals.

This liquidity crisis could have been mitigated if customer spending was high. But customers are spending more cautiously as well. Shopkeepers said families were spending only on essentials, like vegetables like cauliflowers while cutting back on fruits.

The failure of a market

This construct is responsible for that curious stability in prices.

If there was enough cash, said IIM-Bangalore professor MS Sriram, the mandi would have seen “a new equilibrium between supply and demand”. But right now, in the absence of cash, nobody can read the market. “We do not know how supply and demand will move,” he said.

Listening to him, it seemed the market had frozen at the last price it knew. This is something that Abhijit Kumar alluded to as well. “Yeh normal market nahin hain.” This is not a normal market.

It is not clear what happens next. At some point, Sriram said, these food markets will find a new equilibrium and prices will adjust to demand and supply. What is not clear is when that will happen, or what the new equilibrium will be.

In these initial days, the impact of a drop in supply is not too palpable. In the vegetable market, the initial brunt has been borne by the sellers of vegetables like tomatoes, which are trucked in from afar. In foodgrains, as the accountant of a rice trading firm said, wholesalers, retailers and families have buffer stocks. But if those stocks run out before the money supply improves in the market, there will be a shortage.

A paper published by the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy on November 14 said: “If supply too gets curtailed for want of a medium of exchange, prices might, in fact, rise.”

If that happens, the government will face the ire of people. At this time, however, opinion in the mandis is divided about demonetisation. Small traders like Sohan Kumar are angry. Kumar’s daily turnover has fallen from Rs 4,000 to Rs 1,000. So are workers whose daily incomes have been nearly wiped out. Ram Balak, a labourer in his 50s, who works in Maroofganj, made Rs 400 a day before demonetisation. Now, he barely makes Rs 50.

But there is support for demonetisation among bigger traders who believe it will reduce inflation. “Bilkul theek kiya. They did well,” said Sachidanand Singh, a wholesaler who supplies vegetables like cauliflower to the traders in this mandi. “If black money reduces, prices will come down.”

However, if normalcy takes longer, even businesses like his will be affected.

That is the clock this government is racing against.

Demonetisation and food

Take a closer look at all this and you see how demonetisation is disrupting the markets which supply us with our food. The government’s surprise announcement might damage the country’s food stocks, even if money supply improves dramatically in the days ahead, and mandis like Maroofganj and Gandhi Maidan pick up.

This is because the government embarked on the demonetisation drive at a time when the freshly harvested kharif or monsoon crop was arriving at the mandis and the rabi or winter crop was being planted in the fields.

Farmers, who need money to purchase inputs for the rabi sowing, find themselves strapped for cash. At the grain mandi in Karnal in Haryana, commission agents who buy the kharif harvest of paddy have told farmers that they can either collect a full payment in old denominations now or in new notes after 2-3 months.

For a farmer, both are terrible options. On Tuesday, Ramveer Pal, a farmer from Shamli in Uttar Pradesh, had sold around 20 quintals of basmati rice in Karnal mandi. The trader paid him Rs 40,000 in old denominations. “I have to take it as I cannot afford to keep the amount pending for three months,” he said.

But, to convert the old notes, he will have to visit the bank several times, which will be a problem because banks are marking people who are coming for an exchange of notes with indelible ink.

Grains waiting to be sold in Karnal mandi.

That said, the consequences of announcing demonetisation in November go beyond the inconvenience borne by farmers. As traders tried to scrounge up money, the sowing cycle has been delayed. Farmers will have to plant varieties which grow fast, said Rajnish Chaudhary, district president of the Anaj Mandi Association at Karnal. Such varieties have a 10%-15% lower yield, he added.

Some farmers were able to buy seeds, fertilisers and pesticides from commission agents on credit, who in turn got supplies from dealers on credit. Others, however, were struggling to make the purchases, with agents and dealers refusing to take the old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. Ishaq Garg, who runs a store called Ishwar Prem Seeds and Fertilizers in Karnal, said sales have dropped by at least 60%.

Ten awesome TV shows to get over your post-GoT blues

With those withdrawal symptoms kicking in, all you need is a good rebound show.

Hangovers tend to have a debilitating effect on various human faculties, but a timely cure can ease that hollow feeling generally felt in the pit of the stomach. The Game of Thrones Season 7 finale has left us with that similar empty feeling, worsened by an official statement on the 16-month-long wait to witness The Great War. That indeed is a long time away from our friends Dany, Jon, Queen C and even sweet, sweet Podrick. While nothing can quite replace the frosty thrill of Game of Thrones, here’s a list of awesome shows, several having won multiple Emmy awards, that are sure to vanquish those nasty withdrawal symptoms:

1. Billions

There is no better setting for high stakes white collar crime than the Big Apple. And featuring a suited-up Paul Giamatti going head-to-head with the rich and ruthless Damien Lewis in New York, what’s not to like? Only two seasons young, this ShowTime original series promises a wolf-of-wall-street style showcase of power, corruption and untold riches. Billions is a great high-octane drama option if you want to keep the momentum going post GoT.

2. Westworld

What do you get when the makers of the Dark Knight Trilogy and the studio behind Game of Thrones collaborate to remake a Michael Crichton classic? Westworld brings together two worlds: an imagined future and the old American West, with cowboys, gun slingers - the works. This sci-fi series manages to hold on to a dark secret by wrapping it with the excitement and adventure of the wild west. Once the plot is unwrapped, the secret reveals itself as a genius interpretation of human nature and what it means to be human. Regardless of what headspace you’re in, this Emmy-nominated series will absorb you in its expansive and futuristic world. If you don’t find all of the above compelling enough, you may want to watch Westworld simply because George RR Martin himself recommends it! Westworld will return for season 2 in the spring of 2018.

3. Big Little Lies

It’s a distinct possibility that your first impressions of this show, whether you form those from the trailer or opening sequence, will make you think this is just another sun-kissed and glossy Californian drama. Until, the dark theme of BLL descends like an eerie mist, that is. With the serious acting chops of Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman as leads, this murder mystery is one of a kind. Adapted from author Liane Moriarty’s book, this female-led show has received accolades for shattering the one-dimensional portrayal of women on TV. Despite the stellar star cast, this Emmy-nominated show wasn’t easy to make. You should watch Big Little Lies if only for Reese Witherspoon’s long struggle to get it off the ground.

4. The Night of

The Night Of is one of the few crime dramas featuring South Asians without resorting to tired stereotypes. It’s the kind of show that will keep you in its grip with its mysterious plotline, have you rooting for its characters and leave you devastated and furious. While the narrative revolves around a murder and the mystery that surrounds it, its undertones raises questions on racial, class and courtroom politics. If you’re a fan of True Detective or Law & Order and are looking for something serious and thoughtful, look no further than this series of critical acclaim.

5. American Horror Story

As the name suggests, AHS is a horror anthology for those who can stomach some gore and more. In its 6 seasons, the show has covered a wide range of horror settings like a murder house, freak shows, asylums etc. and the latest season is set to explore cults. Fans of Sarah Paulson and Jessica Lange are in for a treat, as are Lady Gaga’s fans. If you pride yourself on not being weak of the heart, give American Horror Story a try.

6. Empire

At its heart, Empire is a simple show about a family business. It just so happens that this family business is a bit different from the sort you are probably accustomed to, because this business entails running a record label, managing artistes and when push comes to shove, dealing with rivals in a permanent sort of manner. Empire treads some unique ground as a fairly violent show that also happens to be a musical. Lead actors Taraji P Henson and Terrence Howard certainly make it worth your while to visit this universe, but it’s the constantly evolving interpersonal relations and bevy of cameo appearances that’ll make you stay. If you’re a fan of hip hop, you’ll enjoy a peek into the world that makes it happen. Hey, even if you aren’t one, you might just grow fond of rap and hip hop.

7. Modern Family

When everything else fails, it’s comforting to know that the family will always be there to lift your spirits and keep you chuckling. And by the family we mean the Dunphys, Pritchetts and Tuckers, obviously. Modern Family portrays the hues of familial bonds with an honesty that most family shows would gloss over. Eight seasons in, the show’s characters like Gloria and Phil Dunphy have taken on legendary proportions in their fans’ minds as they navigate their relationships with relentless bumbling humour. If you’re tired of irritating one-liners or shows that try too hard, a Modern Family marathon is in order. This multiple-Emmy-winning sitcom is worth revisiting, especially since the brand new season 9 premiers on 28th September 2017.

8. The Deuce

Headlined by James Franco and Maggi Gyllenhaal, The Deuce is not just about the dazzle of the 1970s, with the hippest New York crowd dancing to disco in gloriously flamboyant outfits. What it IS about is the city’s nooks and crannies that contain its underbelly thriving on a drug epidemic. The series portrays the harsh reality of New York city in the 70s following the legalisation of the porn industry intertwined with the turbulence caused by mob violence. You’ll be hooked if you are a fan of The Wire and American Hustle, but keep in mind it’s grimmer and grittier. The Deuce offers a turbulent ride which will leave you wanting more.

9. Dexter

In case you’re feeling vengeful, you can always get the spite out of your system vicariously by watching Dexter, our favourite serial killer. This vigilante killer doesn’t hide behind a mask or a costume, but sneaks around like a criminal, targeting the bad guys that have slipped through the justice system. From its premier in 2006 to its series finale in 2013, the Emmy-nominated Michael C Hall, as Dexter, has kept fans in awe of the scientific precision in which he conducts his kills. For those who haven’t seen the show, the opening credits give an accurate glimpse of how captivating the next 45 minutes will be. If it’s been a while since you watched in awe as the opening credits rolled, maybe you should revisit the world’s most loved psychopath for nostalgia’s sake.

Available starting October

10. Rome

If you’re still craving an epic drama with extensive settings and a grandiose plot and sub-plots, Rome, co-produced by HBO and BBC, is where your search stops. Rome is a historical drama that takes you through an overwhelming journey of Ancient Rome’s transition from a republic to an empire. And when it comes to tastes, this series provides the similar full-bodied flavour that you’ve grown to love about Game of Thrones. There’s a lot to take away for those who grew up quoting Julius Caesar, and for those looking for a realistic depiction of the legendary gladiators. If you’re a history buff, give this Emmy-winning show a try.

For your next obsession, Hotstar Premium has you covered with its wide collection of the most watched shows in the world. Apart from the ones we’ve recommended, Indian viewers can now easily watch other universally loved shows such as Silicon Valley and Prison Break, and movies including all titles from the Marvel and Disney universe. So take control of your life again post the Game of Thrones gloom and sign up for the Hotstar Premium membership here.

This article was produced by the Scroll marketing team on behalf of Hotstar and not by the Scroll editorial team.